History of Oil Exploration In Belize
Little is officially known about the history of oil exploration in Belize.
A local newspaper recently reproduced an old interview with a Belizean Mr. Compton Fairweather who was involved in the early search for oil.
The esteemed and highly knowledgeable Compton Fairweather, CBE, published at least two articles in June 2006 issues of The Reporter, where he discussed his employment with Gulf Oil Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the business of oil exploration in British Honduras. Personally, I only have the second of these articles, and I will quote some of Mr. Compton’s revelations and opinions in that article.
“My duties with Gulf were to assist and be trained by senior geologist, Dr. Giovanni Flores, on Italian geologist employed by the company. We explored every river bank, highway excavation, quarry, cave, sink hole and outcrop we could find between the Sarstoon and the Rio Hondo Rivers, taking samples from the sedimentary rock strata.”
“Yes! We did find oil (called ‘shows’ in the industry) at two locations. The best quality was found at the Galvez ranch between San Ignacio and Benque Viejo, now known as Clarissa Falls. The other was at the Western Highway and Belmopan junction, now known as the Agriculture Show Grounds. Even today, almost anyone can break the right rock and if lucky can fill a jar with oozing crude oil.”
“As I have indicated earlier, the Southeastern Mexico oil find which was producing 235,000 barrels of oil per day brought Mexico’s daily output to 635,000 barrels per day by the end of 1974, and it is part of the same Cretaceous zone we were exploring in the Yalbac area in the mid 1950?s. It is my honest belief that when Belize achieves an oil bonanza it will be in the Yalbac area.”
– Compton Fairweather
Editor’s Note: Mr. Fairweather errs in his location of the Belmopan oil find. The oil show was actually about half a mile from the Belmopan junction, on the road north from the Hummingbird leading into the WASA facility. As Chief Information Officer of Belize I personally visited this well and was shown (and collected samples from) oil flowing after a valve was opened by Belize Department of Geology officials.
Mr. Fairweather refers to an area “..now known as Clarissa Falls”. The area was actually known as Clarissa Falls well over a century before Mr. Fairweather was born. Clarissa Falls was given its name in the 18th century by the great Belize-Irish patriot Thomas Paslow in honor of his wife Clarissa Paslow nee Carter a Creole (Afro-English). Thomas Paslow was active in the Public Meeting (the first form of government in the then British Honduras settlement), the great debate over Evacuation in 1797, the Battle of St. George’s Caye in 1798 and in defying British Army Superintendents for some 22 years.
– M.A Romero – Managing Director Belize.com Ltd.
Update: Mr C. Fairweather is right to point out that an oil seep was found near the Belmopan Agricultural how Grounds close to where the old bridge over the Roaring Creek used to be (and downstream from present day bridge). A well was drilled by Gulf Oil-Bahamas Exploration on the National Agriculture and Trade Show Grounds itself. Mr Flores, Mr Fairweather, Mr. Crebbs and team also reported one oil seep downstream from Clarissa Falls and another upstream from Bullet Tree Falls; they located another one by Hell’s Gate near the Sibun-Caves Branch junction. There is a great geology report and map by G. Flores (1952) available at GOB/GPD. – Jean H. Cornec
Addendum November 2011
The following information as posted to the Belize.com Mailing List:
Detailed History of Oil Exploration In Belize
The laws governing licenses for exploration of oil and gas are some of the most liberal in the world. Total footage of nearly 250,000 ft were, drilled and about 6,000 line miles of seismic surveys were conducted. Besides this, aeromagnetic, gravity, and geological mapping were done.
Photogeomorphological interpretation, morphological studies from toposheets, and landsat imagery studies also were carried out. Shallow seismic surveys for the sea bottom were carried out in parts of southern Belize offshore. Forty exploratory wells and eight shallow stratigraphic holes were drilled. The depths of the exploratory wells ranged from 3,500 ft to 16,000 ft. A number of wells never reached the target depth (see Table 1), and in most of the wells production casing was not lowered and conventional testing not done. The depths of the shallow wells, which were for structural information, ranged from 1,990 ft to 2,843 ft in an area covering a few square miles. In the northern Belize, where 24 wells were drilled there are live oil shows in many of the wells. One of the wells in the DST gave a 60 ft oil column of 32 degrees API.
Shell was the first company to obtain an exploratory license as far back as 1938 and carried out geological surveys on the ground and photogeological studies with the help of aerial photographs obtained from a contract with Fairchild Aerial Surveys Inc. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 saw the end of exploration by Shell Gulf was awarded a license obtained through one of its subsidiaries in 1949. The license covered the entire country and its territorial waters comprising 12,600 sq miles. Six years later in 1955 Gulf drilled the first wildcat at Yalbac on an “anticline” which is exposed and defined by photogeological studies.
In 1956 and 1957 Gulf, which entered into a partnership with Shell in 1957, drilled four more wells in northern Belize. In 1958 Gulf transferred its ownership to Bandini Petroleum Co., which in turn assigned its rights to Phillips. In the same year, Gulf drilled four more wells, and Phillips began its exploration activity in southern Belize by drilling two wells on land in 1959. In 1961, Phillips drilled the deepest well in Belize, in the southern offshore, named 1 Palmetto Caye 1. The fourth well, also in the offshore, was drilled in the same year. In the next year, Phillips drilled three more wildcat wells, which turned out to be wells drilled for stratigraphic-structural information. Phillips drilled its eighth test well in southern Belize on land in 1963.
In 1967, Shell now called Belize Shell Development Co., in agreement with Phillips, drilled two wells in the offshore on two islands. Gulf, Phillips, and Shell carried out surface geological, photogeological, aeromagnetic, gravity, and seismic reflection work. other notable companies which contributed significantly are Anschutz, Exxon, Chevron, and Placid.
Anschutz drilled its first exploratory well in northern Belize in 1972. Six more wells were drilled in northern Belize in 1972 and 1973 by Anschutz, whereas Chevron commenced drilling an offshore well in 1974. In 1977 Exxon drilled two wells in southern Belize, one offshore and another on land. Exxon drilled one more well on land in southern Belize, and Anschutz drilled two offshore wells. Placid drilled four wells on land in northern Belize during 1981-82. The present position is that most of the offshore area up to the territorial waters is held by Central American, Pan American, Anschutz, and Petromar.
